Photo for Social Injustice

 

 

For this assignment I chose to take a picture that takes in several things. For me this depicts the struggle of many youth, particularly young women, that feel they have to go to extremes to become the size that society tells them to be in order to achieve true acceptance. This is a picture that shows me with a tape measure wrapped around my head to symbolize how numbers connected to our size are all consuming and continuously on our mind. Not only are the numbers on tape measures to show the physical representations, but they're on the scale we know all too well. We are told from much to early that numbers are important. Sure we're told math is important with addition and subtraction, but we take that to a new level when we put it to work on our own bodies.

Bulimia, Anorexia, and other eating disorders are the other half of this picture. As it's clearly enough displayed, I'm leaning up against a toilet while clinging to the scale to express my psychological need to change my weight. Because of the numbers that are always on our minds, many develop eating disorders in efforts to change they're body to what they believe they should be. Too often we forget about health. All we want is "beauty", which basically translates into "approval" in recognition of the social media.

Popular culture has developed so many different ways to make the same idea and concept seem appealing. Many young boys and girls struggle with their weight and self esteem because while struggling with their parents telling them "you're perfect just the way you are, don't change a thing", society is telling them "you're not perfect yet but you can be. Do this..".

"Be skinny" they tell us, you'll get boys attention. "Be small they said" you'll feel beautiful. We're trying so hard to listen to what society has been telling us that we didn't realize what they've been telling us has been changing too. Now it's "Be skinnier" and "Be smaller" they say, society will accept you. While we're trying so hard for society to accept us, we no longer are able to accept ourselves.